unine2007

@@@@@Women would have wanted to excite some love from him, but for himself -- to see Hearn afraid, filled with shame if only for an instant Cummings went on talking, his voice quiet and expressionless"The average man always sees himself in relation to other men as either inferior or superiorWomen play no part in itThey're an index, a yardstick among other gauges, by which to measure superiority "Did you arrive at that all by yourself, sir? It's an impressive analysis Hearn's sarcasm riled him again"I'm quite aware, Robert, that you've worked out the ABC's of something like that, but you don't carry it any furtherYou stop there, go back to your starting point, and take off againThe truth of it is that from man's very inception there has been one great vision, blurred first by the exigencies and cruelties of nature, and then, as nature began to be conquered, by the second great cloak -- economic fear and economic strivingThat particular vision has been muddied and diverted, but we're coming to a time when our techniques will enable us to achieve it He exhaled his smoke slowly"There's that popular misconception of man as something between a brute and an angelActually man is in transit between brute and God "Man's deepest urge is omnipotence?" "YesIt's not religion, that's obvious, it's not love, it's not spirituality, those are all sops along the way, benefits we devise for ourselves when the limitations of our existence turn us away from the other dreamWhen we come kicking into the world, we are God, the universe is the limit of our sensesAnd when we get older, when we discover that the universe is not us, it's the deepest trauma of our existence Hearn fingered his collar"I'd say your deepest urge is omnipotence, that's all "And yours too, whether you'll admit it or not Hearn's sharp voice softened a little with irony"What moral precepts am I supposed to draw from all this?" Cummings's tension alteredThere had been a deep satisfaction in expounding this, a pleasure apart from all the other concerns of this discussion with Hearn"I've been trying to impress you, Robert, that the only morality of the future is a power morality, and a man who cannot find his adjustment to it is doomed